1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a thermal printer which records an image on a heat-sensitive recording medium by heating the latter, and a facsimile system which records an image on a recording medium by transferring ink from an ink sheet to the recording medium.
2. Related Background Art
Generally, in a heat-sensitive printer which records an image on a recording medium such as heat-sensitive paper, and in a heat transfer printer which records an image on a recording medium such as plain paper by transferring ink from an ink sheet to the recording medium, the recording operation is performed by heating a thermal head. In this connection, a thermal printer which can perform not only heat-transfer image recording on the plain paper but also heat-sensitive recording on the heat-sensitive paper by means of a single printer by merely changing the recording media and mounting or dismounting the ink sheet has been proposed. Conventionally, in such a thermal printer, the heat control regarding the thermal head was not altered at all when the heat-sensitive recording mode was changed to the heat-transfer recording mode or vice versa, or the time for current supply to the thermal head was merely altered when the heat-sensitive recording mode was changed to the heat-transfer recording mode or vice versa.
On the other hand, conventionally, in the heat-transfer printer, the use of an ink sheet by which multiple image recordings can be repeated by n times (referred to hereinafter as "multi-print ink sheet") has been known. By using such a multi-print ink sheet, when the recording length of L is continuously recorded, a total length of movement of the ink sheet to be fed after each of the images has been recorded or during the recording of the images can be shortened smaller than the length L (L/n : n&gt;1). In this way, the efficiency of the use of the ink sheet can be increased by n times in comparison with the conventional ink sheet, thus reducing the running cost of the heat-transfer printer. The printing method using the multi-print ink sheet will be referred to hereinafter as "multi-print".
Heretofore, in a thermal printer capable of performing the multi-print, recording an apparatus which can record good images both on plain paper and heat-sensitive paper has been required.